


Stranger to Your Soul

by FaiaSakura



Series: Witches and Werewolves and Vampires, Oh My! [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Fox Shapeshifter Neil, Gen, Happy Ending, M/M, Magical Realism, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash, Werewolf Andrew, Witch Neil Josten, all I wanted was fox!Neil cuddling with Andrew, spot the furuba references, there's a minor xover TVD The Legacies but you don't need to know anything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-10-12
Packaged: 2020-10-27 05:54:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 14,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20755409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaiaSakura/pseuds/FaiaSakura
Summary: Never use your magic, Abram. Promise me..Neil Josten always cared more about how he was forbidden from playing exy than about how his mother bound his magic every year. He goes to PSU for exy but once there, finds the two worlds starting to collide.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so excited to finally share this! This is a collaboration with [Mistykaru](http://mistykaru.tumblr.com/). Find chapter 1 and 2 art [here](https://mistykaru.tumblr.com/post/188202137988/i-was-part-of-the-aftgbigbang-again-this-year) and embedded in the text. Shoutout to [blacktreecle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blacktreecle) and [adverbialstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adverbialstarlight) for beta-ing!  
(Make sure you have creator workskin enabled on mobile to see the art properly!)

_Side-step, side-step, shuffle._

Neil Josten kicked up dust on the sidewalk as he reviewed the drill his exy team, the Millport Dingos, had practiced that afternoon. The emphasis was on footwork and speed, both of which he excelled at. His small size coupled with his habit of running meant that his speed was one of the most important elements he brought to the game.

There wasn’t much else going for him, but exy was the one thing that brought him any joy in life. The season was almost over and Neil intended to bring his all to the remaining matches. The Dingos weren’t going to be impressing scouts or making waves in high school sports, so he hadn’t been holding back anymore in their past few games and would fight with his team to last as long as they could.

Neil wanted to make the most of the exy he had left to play.

He was only half paying attention to his surroundings—Millport had few streets, and even fewer surprises. Dusty paths led to barren shopping plazas, and occasional tumbleweeds created obstacles in his path. Nothing was exciting about the walk from the high school to where he was squatting.

It was still bright outside and, despite only being April, already hot. It luckily wasn’t a sticky, muggy heat like some of the many other places he had lived over the years, but all the desert dust that got kicked up in his footsteps and stuck to his freshly washed but already sweaty skin wasn’t pleasant either.

Just as he adjusted the positioning of his duffle strap on his shoulder, Neil heard a nasally laugh ring out and froze for a moment before ducking behind a trashcan in the nearby alleyway.

A woman with cropped hair and a pointed nose stepped out of a shop, and suddenly Neil was elsewhere.

For a moment, Neil was back in his Father’s basement, gripping a knife in his small, shaking hand as Lola Malcolm mocked his form and hesitancy with laughter.

For a moment, all Neil could see was Lola’s pinched face as she told him it was his fault for needing punishment.

His mind played in a loop, _she found me, she found me_, as his heartbeat hammered in his chest. He gripped the strap of his duffle hard enough that his nails dug crescent marked scars into the flesh of his palm.

The woman turned her face more towards Neil, looking kinder than Lola ever had, and spoke to the man walking with her in an accent and voice completely unlike Lola’s.

The two of them walked past where Neil was crouched, trembling and frozen.

He stayed curled as cars drove by and shadows lengthened and bugs started chirping.

Tight energy swirled inside him, begging to be released but kept in by the bindings his mother had left in her final moments.

_Never use your magic, Abram. Promise me._.

She had forced him to repeat all her rules out loud as she bound Neil’s magic up with runes drawn in his own blood that faded into his skin as the restrictions took hold.

She had tied up his powers once a year, on his birthday, keeping the ability secret from even his father. Mary had no powers of her own, but had studied enough to know how to turn Neil’s magic into self-restraints.

Her dying breaths had been spent on renewing the bindings ahead of schedule.

Bindings that were increasingly loose as Neil grew in power and the year passed by.

On his most recent birthday—his actual one, not the arbitrary one printed on his current identifications—there had been a surge of staticky energy that almost hurt as it pulsed within his body, flexing against the bindings under his skin and trying to find release. Neil had never experienced such a rush of magic, but recalling his mother’s promise, he grabbed a sterile syringe to draw out blood and drew runes on himself, familiar with their shapes after watching Mary do it over and over, year after year.

His magic had settled down afterward, retreating to his core where it usually lay dormant. In times of stress, it surged outwards, begging Neil to use it. But he couldn’t, not the way it wanted to be used.

He could almost feel the shape of the binding runes now, straining to keep his magic in check. Neil visualized them staying strong and unyielding against the turbulent magic that beat as fiercely as his heart did.

Only after night fell did Neil slowly unbend his stiff joints, loosen the grip on his duffle strap, and stand up again. He couldn’t tell if the buzzing in his leg was from it falling asleep or a residual effect from the magic surge.

The dry climate meant it was already starting to cool down, and after shaking out his limbs, Neil jogged back to the house he was squatting at.

He told himself over and over that the woman wasn’t Lola, that he was safe. Lola was on the other side of the country, in miserable Baltimore, and definitely not wandering the streets of some podunk town nobody cared about.

As Neil turned in for the night, shaky with excess adrenaline and magic alike, he still couldn’t chase away the lingering fear.

* * *

The next morning, Neil woke from fitful slumber, decidedly not well-rested and up much earlier than he needed to be for classes. But he knew there would be no returning to sleep.

He wanted to go for a run to settle his nerves, but it would be odd to show up to class sweaty and gross. Instead, he dug into his bag for the secret binder hidden at the bottom.

Neil pulled out the most recent addition, an article he had carefully torn from a sports magazine not even a week ago.

_KEVIN DAY RETURNS TO EXY!!!_

Neil traced the two on Kevin’s face, following the lines of his tattoo as he scanned over the words he had already memorized.

The article sensationalized the rise and fall of Kevin Day, Son of Exy, and his recent rebirth again. Neil often wondered how his life might have been if he had been born in Kevin’s place. He could play all the exy he wanted to, and not be on the run from his murderous crime lord of a father.

Of course, it was tragic how Kevin’s mother—Kayleigh Day, one of the co-creators of exy—had died in a car accident, and nobody knew who his father was,. But at least Kevin had Riko Moriyama and Riko’s uncle Tetsuji, exy’s other co-creator.

All Neil had was his mother. And now, not even her.

For a while, it didn’t seem like Kevin had anything either. His hand had been injured in a skiing accident and he disappeared, only to return to sports as an assistant coach to the exy team at Palmetto State University—the Foxes. Neil couldn’t imagine how coaching, eternally watching from the sidelines of the plexiglass court, could possibly compare to the thrill of being within those walls, actually playing.

Apparently, Kevin didn’t think coaching could compare to playing either, as he'd just announced his return to playing college exy, now with his non-dominant right hand.

Neil understood. He might be tempted to sell one of his hands for a moment to play on a court like Kevin, without repercussions from his father’s unsavory associates.

But now, there could be no more playing, ever again.

Over the last couple months, Neil had broken all of his mother’s rules except the rule on magic, and that was more from physical incapability than lingering obedience.

He had stayed in this town too long. He had played exy. He had stood out from his general peers by being good at exy, despite deliberately playing down his skills at the beginning.

Neil couldn’t stop thinking about how the woman from yesterday could have been Lola. He was unprepared. Weak. Soft.

It was time to leave Millport, and exy, behind.

* * *

Leaving high school, especially in the middle of the school year, was significantly harder without a living parent figure to help the transition.

Neil informed Coach Hernandez that afternoon that he would be able to play in tomorrow’s game, but his parents were getting divorced and his mother was going to take him to Phoenix permanently that weekend. He also asked for what the school needed from his mother to facilitate dropping out of high school.

When Coach narrowed his eyes in suspicion, Neil said he would get his GED but needed to support his mother more than he needed an education. Arizona only required children up to the age of sixteen to attend school. He shuffled his feet and tried to look downcast, perfectly aware that his fake absentee parents were a flimsy story, and let Hernandez make whatever assumptions he liked.

Hernandez just sighed and asked Neil for a contact number. He spoke with such gravity that Neil ended up giving him his real number for the burner he was using, not that it would be with him after he left Millport.

The next day, Neil played his last game on their home field. They won with Neil scoring the final shot—a good an end as could be to his short-lived exy career. Neil dodged invitations to celebratory pizza from his other teammates and took a seat at the bleachers overlooking the field.

This was it. His very last game. Maybe the very last time he would ever hold an exy racquet. Neil lit a cigarette and set it down next to him to burn. For once, the acrid scent of smoke, like and unlike the scent of his mother burning on that California beach, did little to keep him rooted in his goals.

Fierce bittersweet nostalgia hit Neil instead, as he traced over the worn school racquet in his hands. There were several scuffs and dings, and the paint was almost completely worn off. The holes where the strings were strung showed significant signs of wear. This wasn’t Neil’s racquet, but it was the only item that had brought him any semblance of joy these last few months.

Once Neil put this racquet back into the equipment rack, it would really be over.

The excitement that had bubbled up when he scored that last shot now soured into dread in his stomach. Now that he’d had a taste of exy, he would always want more.

Neil stood up, crushed his cigarette, and walked with heavy steps into the now empty lockers to shower.

* * *

Ways in and out of Millport were limited when you didn’t have a car, so Neil waited for night to fall as he removed all traces that he ever inhabited the empty house he claimed.

Once all the neighbors seemed to have gone to sleep, Neil went out around the side where a copse of cacti grew.

Mary bound his magic every year, but there was still one trick he could do regardless: a soul form projection. His mother restricted his magic so that it couldn’t escape the boundaries of his skin but his transformation was internal. Or at least he thought it was. Neil didn’t actually know much about how magic worked.

Neil focused on the energy always buzzing inside him, begging to be released, the phantom static that coursed through his veins. He pulled it inwards, winding it into a ball that rebounded after enough pressure and enveloped his human shell.

There was a slight ripple in the air as Neil’s body, along with his clothes and attached belongings, disappeared. In his place was an ordinary-looking red fox, medium-sized with just a bit of gangliness in its limbs.

Neil shook out his fur and tested out his new body by circling the cacti. It had been some time since his last transformation. The world felt _more_ in this form. Colors crisper, scents sharper. As a magical construct, his body didn’t function as an actual fox’s would, and his magic heightened his senses.

After adjusting, Neil darted off, following backstreets to where the road out of town was. He kept off the paved highway but stuck close, running across the desert with impressive speed.

This was freedom.

Neil’s paws loped along in the sand, kicking up dust behind him. His hind leg occasionally brushed against his bushy tail, reminding him the extra appendage existed. Wind chased through his fur and tickled at his whiskers.

In the distance, a coyote howled. Rodents scurried back into their burrows as he blurred past them.

Neil loved running, both as a human and as a fox, though he only got to properly run in his fox form after his mother died. Mary had disproved of his transformation unless it was for a useful purpose.

And the only useful purpose was that injuries didn’t transfer from his physical body to his form.

The few times his mother had him transform were when Neil had been injured by his father’s men, they didn’t have the necessary supplies to patch Neil up, and it would be inconspicuous for Mary to move around with a fox.

Neil could distinctly remember bleeding out in the car they were using somewhere in Canada, and her screaming at him to _shift, you stupid boy, before you die from blood loss_. She had screamed at him as their car careened down streets at illegal speeds, and he took bloody, wet gasps trying to process her words in between the pain searing at him.

It had been a struggle to pull his wits together and transform, and the sudden lack of pain would have resulted in a near euphoric high if his mother hadn’t continued to keep him tethered to reality by berating him further as she drove to a safe house.

His scars didn’t transfer over either, a nice touch if he were ever to be spotted by regular humans. Neil made sure he was never in sight though, aware that foxes were still hunted in many parts of the country.

The best thing about his fox form was that he didn’t tire, not really. Because his form was a construct fueled by his internal magic and he was unable to use his magic in any other way, there was a deep pool of energy inside him to draw from. His magic was finite, but Neil had never exhausted it before.

He didn’t need to eat, as he discovered in the past year. As a fox, he could keep running through the night, not needing to stop for breaks. The ultimate convenience for traveling on the run.

And he never got winded. There was no stopping for breath or taking water breaks as a fox. There was only Neil and the distance ahead of him.

By the time day broke, Neil neared Tucson. He shifted back, grasping his mental representation of his human self and imagined it to contain his magic again. Neil did his best to look unremarkable as he got on a bus to Phoenix.

From there, he should’ve gone back to California to get new identification. But the thought of entering that state again, knowing his mother’s body was buried somewhere along its long coastline, filled him with dread.

Neil Josten hadn’t been found by his father’s people yet, and he had other forged identities in his duffle anyway.

It was only a two-hour bus ride from Tucson to Phoenix. At Phoenix, he had so many options he wasn’t quite sure where to go next. The Greyhound station was right next to the international airport. Neil could go anywhere, be anyone.

He could do anything, except play exy.

Neil wandered about the dingy station, looking at the faded board announcing next destinations and departure times when he came across a magazine rack filled with trashy tabloids. One caught his eye—on its front page was a piece about how Palmetto State University was getting vandalized due to Kevin Day’s decision to play there instead of returning to Edgar Allen University.

It criticized Kevin, with the sort of sensationalized tone that Neil knew meant the writer knew nothing about exy and less about Kevin Day. Still, Neil bought the paper and sat down to flip through it.

Nobody thought Kevin would play again after the skiing accident that ruined his hand. Neil certainly hadn’t.

How tall Kevin must stand, to not let that night when Nathan Wesninski had taken a man apart in front of them and Riko traumatize him, nor let his injury end his exy career as predicted. A flood of jealousy rushed through Neil.

He also wondered why Kevin didn’t return to Edgar Allen and about the mysteries contained in Evermore. The PSU Foxes were ranked lowest in their division, but something had to make going there—first as an assistant coach, then as a member of their team—worth it.

Before he was even fully conscious of his decision, Neil found himself heading to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and buying a direct flight ticket to Charlotte, North Carolina.

In the wait time before his flight, Neil doubted his decision over and over and over.

His mother would murder him if she was still alive. Neil could feel phantom hands in his hair, gripping it tightly, and her voice demanding to know what was wrong with him, saying that she hadn’t kept him alive all these years just so he could waste her efforts by indulging in his obsession with exy.

But Neil couldn’t stop dreaming about what it would be like to have a life like Kevin’s. To have grown up surrounded by exy players, in an exy stadium, playing as much exy as he wanted. Would Neil have been good enough to be recruited by a college team? A pro team?

Neil let himself indulge in that dream, where he grew up as an ordinary kid in Baltimore and not the son of a crime lord. Where he played on a youth league, then on a high school team. Where he went to college on a sports scholarship. Then, the announcement that his flight was starting to board cut through and reminded him that the cost of hope would always be disappointment.

Exy would never be his life.

Going to PSU to see Kevin play would be his one last exy-related indulgence.

Then Neil would disappear to somewhere new, maybe Mexico or South America, where his father had no connections. Spanish or Portuguese would be easy to pick up for Neil, and he had long learned the best ways to blend in in a foreign country. Neil would be able to start a new life there safely.

But first, exy.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Neil attends an exy match, breaks into an exy stadium, and finds questions but no answers.
> 
> Andrew finds a fox.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shoutout to [queenbelladonna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/queenbelladonna), [halfdesertedstreets](https://archiveofourown.org/users/halfdesertedstreets), and [adverbialstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adverbialstarlight) for beta-ing!

Neil switched to traveling in his fox form after getting off the plane in Charlotte. It took him a full day of navigating overgrown paths along I-85 and then I-76, but eventually he made it to Palmetto by mid-morning. 

The town didn’t have much going for it other than the university. It was a sleepy suburbia and Neil, looking like every other unkempt college student wandering about, blended in easily.

The Foxes had a home game against the Jackals the next day, which Neil bought a nosebleed section ticket for. The TV cameras and players alike wouldn’t notice him there. Kevin certainly wouldn’t, if he even remembered Neil at all. 

He had a day to spare and wasn't sure what to do with himself. Eventually, he decided to sneak into the college library and nestled into a back corner with an introductory Spanish book. He reviewed common travel phrases in preparation for heading south after the game. 

While whispering the words to himself, his tongue would slip and say a word in French. Both were romance languages of Latin origin, and he could understand about half of the vocabulary just with his knowledge of French. Accents were the most crucial part of blending into a new region though, so Neil made sure to keep referencing the phonetic guide to keep his pronunciation proper. 

The library was open until late. Neil stayed there all day, getting up only to use the restroom and, on one occasion, buy a blueberry muffin from the coffee cart stationed inside. He filled his mind with Spanish words in an effort to ward off his worry over his decision to watch the game tomorrow. 

When closing time arrived, Neil reluctantly tore himself away from his book and placed it back where he found it. He blended in with the other disgruntled students who were heading to their dorms. Neil veered off on a side path near the dorms that lead to hiking trails and found a secluded spot to shift in.

Each time, the transformation got easier and required less focus. Perhaps it was because of all the practice recently. 

His fur was comfortable in a way his skin never was. Being human meant worrying about keeping his scars covered and remembering the details of his current identity and following his mother’s rules. 

As a fox, Neil could be anyone, do anything. 

Neil tried to nap in a clearing far from the forest trails and dreamed of playing exy, but every time he scored a goal, Spanish words would sound off instead of a buzzer. When he woke, it was still dark, and no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't fall back asleep. 

Maybe that was a consequence of being in his fox form. It didn’t require sustenance and didn’t require rest. 

There was also his excitement for the coming day, a fizzing joy his heart couldn’t contain. He had never been to a real exy game before. The intensity of Division I NCAA exy games was comparable to professional games.

If he couldn’t sleep, then he could burn his energy running. 

Running always settled his nerves.

Palmetto University’s experimental forest that was thousands of acres large. Neil followed the shoreline of Lake Hartwell south, getting a feel for the land. 

The forest was alive, even at night. Echoing howls of a pack of coyote rang through the trees and birds startled as Neil ran past them. 

As the sky began to lighten, he came face to face with a fox—a real fox. It gekkered at him with a guttural cry but made no approach. Neil decided to head back towards campus, following his path back along the shoreline. 

The water gleamed orange as the sun rose, a delicate sparkle that matched the coloring of Neil’s coat. 

Caught up in the freedoms his soul form afforded him, Neil decided to remain a fox for a little longer. His paws were wet with dew as he explored the edges of the university campus, keeping hidden in the bushes and trees, not that college students were exactly observant. They all looked so carefree, lounging around and complaining about morning exams. 

Finally, the time came for the match. Neil went back to the library to check if his roots were still the ruddy brown, before going to the Foxhole Court.

It would be the first exy stadium Neil would enter since that day at Evermore and the experience couldn’t be more different. The gaudy orange and white looked cheerful and welcoming, nothing like the ominous red and black stadium that haunted Neil’s dreams. Inside, the searing color scheme was matched with bright lights, the alternating orange and white sections lit such that he thought staring for too long might hurt his eyes.

That didn’t matter.

These might be the last breaths he ever took near an exy court—he was going to savor each and every moment, and emblazon every image into the back of his eyelids so he would dream in orange and white.

The seats around Neil were pretty empty because of how poorly the Foxes had been doing all season, and he decided it would look suspicious to be in a row by himself, so just before the game started, he moved down and stole a closer seat that didn’t look to have been sold.

From starting buzzer to end, Neil was enraptured in the game, which could only be described as glorious disaster. The Foxes, individually, all seemed to play well, but there was a reason exy was a team sport.

They constantly picked fights at every insult, real or imagined, and were in constant danger of losing team members to red cards. They even treated their own teammates roughly, and certainly couldn’t work together, missing passes and ignoring open calls. The captain, Danielle Wilds, seemed to be pitching a losing battle at getting her teammates to listen or cooperate. And Neil could see Kevin Day off to the side, pacing furiously and gesturing agitatedly during timeouts.

Still, Neil couldn’t look away—from Kevin or the actual players. If only the team could pull together and work as one. 

Maybe that’s why Kevin was staying at Palmetto—for the sheer brilliance that would happen if the players could unite and fulfill their potential. 

The people sitting around Neil, apparent Palmetto students or town residents, started to lose interest as the Foxes failed to hold any semblance of a lead. They were fools who didn’t understand exy. Even attendees dressed in orange were booing the Foxes. Cheerleaders were trying to keep spirits up in the crowds but with little success.

Sure, the Foxes were almost certainly going to lose and get knocked out of the championship run in this very match. But they played with a tenacity and raw energy that was grippingly real. They knew they were never going to catch up to a 2-5 score in the last quarter but fought hard, and bloody, to the bitter end. The goalie, Andrew Minyard, didn’t let in a single goal, but his team also couldn’t manage to score any more points.

And bitter it was, for the Foxes to be defeated, and for Neil’s first and last exy game to come to an end so quickly.

Neil was silent as he exited the stadium, a seemingly disappointed nobody blending into the rest of the despondent crowd, but his mind replayed the game over and over, turning over the many mistakes during the game, as well as the few moments of magic made from when the team was in sync. 

There was a weakness in their strikers, Neil decided. 

They were all too eager to be the one who scored, even when another teammate was better positioned. And they were the ones who seemed to disregard the captain the most. The dealers knew what they were doing, but could seldom find cooperation. The backliners seemed solid but lacked technique and let in too many striker attempts such that the goalies could only do so much.

The Jackals seemed to know the Foxes’ weaknesses, easily inciting them to fights and distraction. But still, they held on and gave their best.

Hours later, Neil’s mind still buzzed with excitement and his limbs were restless. As amazing of a wreck the game had been, Neil wished for nothing more than to have been on the court himself, as a Fox or a Jackal, playing exy.

He wanted to go running as a human but there would be no reliable place to shower after. Maybe he could burn some energy in his fox form again.

Neil found a secluded area and bundled up the thrumming magic flowing in his veins, shifting in an abrupt swirl of color. He shook out his fur and then was off, bounding through the woods, taking a new path north. 

It wasn’t quite as satisfying as running his human form—there was no burn in his legs or rhythmic heartbeat in his chest; no harsh panting or need for water breaks. He wanted the exhaustion that came with being human but instead felt like he could go on forever.

There was plenty of forest space Neil could go explore, but somehow, Neil found himself back at the Foxhole Court, which sat at one edge of where the campus met wilderness.

Even at night, it still looked magnificent, standing tall in the darkness and casting long shadows in the moonlight.

Neil, overtaken by some whimsical moment of impulse, shifted back to his human form, picked the stadium door locks, and walked inside. His footsteps might have echoed in the abandoned hallways if his mother hadn’t taught him how to walk silently or else face a painful punishment.

He ignored the stairs that lead to where he had sat earlier that day, instead picking another set of doors that would take him to the front row and the court itself. In the pitch-black darkness, Neil could just barely make out the faint reflections of the court plexiglass gleaming from moonlight spilling in from rafter windows. 

With slow, silent steps, Neil approached the court. Maybe if he touched those walls, even briefly, he could finally find the strength to walk away from the siren call of exy.

Before he could even reach the walls, a clatter from inside the building caused Neil to freeze, and a burst of light from the home team locker room had him sprinting away and up the stadium seat rows like a silent phantom.

Neil dove under a seat near the wall just as the stadium lights turned to full brightness. 

Who was using the stadium so late at night? Neil could smell the faint trace of cleaning chemicals from where he was huddled, so it couldn’t be a cleaning crew. He wanted to get up and investigate but didn’t dare get out to look. He would probably be arrested for breaking and entering, which would draw entirely too much attention to himself. 

His question was answered when Neil heard the unmistakable voice of Kevin Day say, “If you don’t want to be here, why did you drive us over? Stop looking at me like that. Better yet, join me on the court.” 

It sounded more irate and stressed than Neil had ever heard him sound in the interviews he’d managed to watch over the years. 

If the person with Kevin had a response, Neil didn’t catch it. There was a silence, then scuffing sounds, then finally, the sound of an exy racquet hitting a ball over and over, some kind of drill.

Kevin and the other person were here to practice, at what must be nine or ten o’clock at night, by themselves. 

And Neil was trapped until they were done.

It grated on him, the thought that his foolish exy obsession might land him in hot water, but even more so that he couldn’t watch Kevin Day play, even if it was just basic drills.

Unless…

Neil was stuck in one of the sections painted a garish orange, an orange that he was pretty sure matched the coat of his fur well enough. It would certainly stick out less than his brown hair and grey shirt. 

He shifted to this soul form, and waited. 

The sounds of Kevin practicing didn’t change and Neil slowly crawled out from under the seat. He kept close to the floor and looked down between the gaps in the seating at the court below.

Kevin was doing some sort of drill Neil had never seen before, which involved using the wall as a rebound to knock down cones. The person with him was outside the court walls, lounging across the home team bench. Neil recognized the shock of blonde hair—it was a Minyard twin, either the backliner or the goalie, but Neil couldn’t tell which one.

His hearing was better as a fox, though, and could pick up what Kevin was saying through the open court doors.

“You could have tried harder in the first half. Shutting down the goal only part of the time isn’t as effective as you think.” Kevin spoke between repetitions of his drill, somehow focused on giving what must be the goalie—Andrew—critique while also concentrating on training his non-dominant right hand.

“It’s also not effective for a team to score only two goals in a whole game.” Andrew sounded bored and wholly unaffected by the criticism.

Kevin huffed as he went around collecting the exy balls and restarted the drill.

“You know what’s also not effective? Making yourself into a target like this.” Andrew’s voice has the faintest sharp undertone. It might not have been picked up by an ordinary person, but Neil was skilled in noticing even minute changes in tone. He had to be, to stay on his father’s good side, and his mother’s.

What did Andrew mean Kevin was a target? Whose target, and for what?

Kevin bit out, “Riko has already done the damage he can do. He’s—he—” There was a slight tremor in Kevin’s racquet as he prepared to knock down the next cone. The ball rebounded off the plexiglass wall and then missed.

“Fuck!” Kevin’s shout was unexpectedly loud. The next few cones were knocked down with extreme force and prejudice.

“What did those poor cones do to you? Don’t break down on me. It was your idea to play again.” Again, there was a thin core of steel behind Andrew’s words.

What did Riko have to do with Kevin playing or not playing exy again? Did _damage_ refer to Kevin’s hand, injured during his skiing accident?

“Why don’t you make yourself useful and practice?”

Kevin waved his racquet at Andrew, who remained where he was on the bench.

“Boring. Pass. Besides, like you just mentioned, I played in the game today. I’ll burn out if I don’t take care of myself.”

“Burn out? Were you even trying today?”

“Complaints, complaints. Don’t take your anger at your abysmal aim out on me. I’m innocent.” Andrew wiggled his hand at Kevin without looking up from where he lay.

Kevin scoffed and returned to the drill. 

The precision needed was incredible, and Kevin couldn’t have been using his non-dominant hand before the accident. Neil would surely be abysmal the drill, but Kevin managed to knock most of them down in a single try. He was clean lines and perfect form, even when he missed. 

His title as the Son of Exy was well deserved.

It was a high-level drill, but Kevin didn’t seem able to keep up with his own high expectations. He could hit three to four out of five cones in each set, but by how his movement became increasingly agitated, Neil thought that Kevin wanted—needed—to knock out all five each time.

After another cone missed, Neil was half convinced Kevin would toss his racquet across the court when Andrew called out, “Kevin. Breathe.”

It was a harsh command that was at odds with the way Andrew still appeared to be napping.

“Breathe? There’s no time for breathing! We only have a few months before next season starts.” His voice was borderline hysterical, words rushed and strung out.

When it didn’t look like he would get a response, Kevin motioned to start again.

Andrew sat up and crossed his legs. “Yes, and if you die from apoplexy before we even start, then it will have been a waste of your effort, and more importantly, my effort.”

Kevin appeared to take enough afront to pause. “If it’s so much effort, why don’t you just give up on me?”

“We have a deal.” Andrew drew out the words slowly like he was speaking to a child. “If you want to break it and go crawling back to the Moriyamas, then do it. But I don’t go back on my word.”

A deal? What could Andrew Minyard, former juvenile delinquent and genius goalie, have to offer Kevin that he couldn’t get from the Moriyamas?

“You shouldn’t have made it with me.” Kevin shook his head. “I took advantage of your naivety. You don’t know what they’re capable of.”

“Don’t I?” Andrew lifted up a hand and waggled his fingers.

Kevin flinched. “That’s doesn’t even scrape the surface.”

“Then why are you still here? Didn’t you just say Riko’s done what he can?”

“You underestimate them.”

“You underestimate me.”

Neil had no idea what was happening. What were the Moriyamas capable of? What did Riko do? Would whatever deal between him and Kevin put Andrew in danger?

The rest of the practice passed silently, leaving Neil questions with no answers. His curiosity burned. For all that he’d followed Kevin and Riko, there was so much he was apparently ignorant about. 

The mystery of what happened all those years ago dragged itself to the forefront of Neil’s mind. Could that be related to Kevin’s current troubles?

Neil watched as Kevin finally exited the plexiglass walls and began a series of cooldown exercises. He felt a rush of relief—he could finally leave.

“You go on ahead,” Neil heard Andrew say. “I’ll clean up.”

“You?” Even from afar, Neil could hear the incredulity.

“Do you see anyone else talking?” Andrew mocked in a falsetto voice. Neil didn’t understand why Andrew was even here if he wasn’t interested in practicing and didn’t even get along with Kevin. He just spent the entire time arguing and sleeping on the bench.

Kevin made a noise of disagreement but started walking to the locker rooms. A few moments after he left, Andrew pulled a knife from his armbands, snatched an exy ball from the bin Kevin had been using, and called out to the stadium. “Come out, come out, little spy.”

Neil froze, ears flattening in fear and tail tucking behind him as he realized Andrew Minyard somehow knew he was there. He didn’t know much about the other man but had done a bit of research when news hit that Andrew had turned down Riko and Kevin's offer from Edgar Allen—nobody had turned down an offer to be a Raven before. 

The Minyard twins had grown up separately, and Andrew spent a few years in juvenile detention. Then, after being released from juvie, there had been a suspicious car accident in which the mother who had given him up had died.

Apparently, he also carried knives in his armbands.

“I know you’re here.” Andrew’s loud voice echoed in the empty stadium menacingly, a contrast to the quiet words Neil had previously strained to hear. He began walking around the seats, scanning up and down the rows. “Good luck trying to get out without my notice.”

Andrew bounced the ball in his hand against the floor in a steady beat that grew more ominous as he neared where Neil was hidden.

There were two options: for Andrew to find him, or for Neil to reveal himself. While Neil wasn’t fond of either, he figured that revealing himself would at least allow him some control over the situation. 

Neil jumped up, hoping too late to stop that Andrew hadn’t been sent to juvie for animal cruelty, and made a high-pitched yip, cutting through the rhythmic bouncing Andrew was still making with his exy ball.

The bouncing stopped as Andrew turned to look up at where Neil was now standing in the aisles.

“Oh?” Andrew’s entire demeanor changed as he tucked away his knife. “How did you get in here?” 

His voice was no longer menacing as it had just been, or borderline apathetic like in his interactions with Kevin. Instead, Neil thought it might’ve been friendliness weaved through his words. 

Neil hesitated, not sure why Andrew's behavior had shifted so quickly. He bounded up a couple of steps to keep his distance and barked at Andrew.

Andrew clicked his tongue and bent over slightly, patting his thighs in a _come over_ movement normally reserved for pet animals. 

When Neil didn’t do anything, Andrew clicked some more and asked Neil to “come here little fox.”

Neil was pretty sure this wasn’t the typical response that a college athlete, or any normal person, should have to finding a fox in an empty exy court. Andrew should’ve been calling animal control, or campus security, or someone—not trying to lure Neil closer.

Unsure of what else to do but gripped with an unfathomable curiosity, Neil approached slowly, a few steps at a time. When he was almost at ground level, Andrew reached for his pocket and Neil froze again.

Andrew traded out the exy ball for out a metal tin, the kind breath mints were stored in. As Andrew opened the container, Neil could smell…meat.

There, held towards Neil in the palm of Andrew’s hand, was what looked and smelled like a tiny dog treat.

“Come here now,” Andrew said softly as he slowly waved his hand left and right, trying to tempt Neil with it.

Who carried dog treats in their pockets? Did he think Neil was a dog? How could someone who played for a school whose mascot was a fox not recognize a common red fox?

And an entirely different set of questions than before swirled in Neil’s mind even as he continued to approach, too caught up in the strangeness of the scenario to worry about danger.

Andrew placed the treat on the floor and took a few steps back.

Neil stood directly in front of the treat and sniffed around it. It smelled of beef flavoring. He couldn’t detect anything else prominent—no acrid chemicals that were indicative of common poisons. Neil looked up to see Andrew watching him, face blank but somehow softer than Neil expected.

Although Neil’s form didn’t require sustenance and maintained function by drawing from his magic, he could still eat. Probably. 

Neil bent down and flicked his tongue out, tasting the dog treat while accident flicking it forward. He had never eaten a dog treat as a human and hadn’t eaten anything ever as a fox, but the treat tasted pretty good, kind of like beef jerky. He decided it was unlikely Andrew Minyard carried dog treats in his pocket to poison random wild animals and snatched it up off the ground.

Neil’s jaws, a little clumsy from inexperience, spilled a bit as he crunched down on the treat. Neil swallowed and then looked up, confused as to what he should now do. For lack of other options, he half growled-half barked at Andrew.

Andrew tsked. “Greedy little thing.” He pulled out another dog treat but held it in his palm as he crouched down to be at eye level with Neil.

Once again, Neil wondered if this was a plot. 

Maybe Andrew would quick draw his knife out and gut Neil once he was within arm’s reach. But Neil was already as good as trapped, given that Andrew could probably aim well with the exy ball in his pocket. Neil certainly wasn’t going to lunge at him in a preemptive attack—he could get a good bite or scratch in, but Andrew’s knife would ultimately do more damage. Anyone who carried a knife to late-night exy practice was probably familiar with using it. 

If getting stabbed was the end scenario either way, Neil might as well have another treat.

Neil snatched the treat out of Andrew’s hand and swallowed it quickly, even as his limbs were electrified with tension, ready to leap away at any sudden movement.

Nothing happened.

Daring to push his luck, Neil barked again.

Andrew just sighed, “Spoiled foxy-woxy.” He drew out a third treat and held it in his palm again.

So he did know Neil was a fox. 

That still begged the question of why he was acting like Neil was someone’s pet dog and not a wild animal. Maybe the Foxes kept a real fox as a team pet and Andrew was mistaking Neil for it. Surely that would have come up in his research on the team, though. And pets usually wore collars.

Andrew’s hand remained outstretched as Neil ate the third treat. Then he moved it slowly towards Neil’s head.

Neil froze again, whiskers vibrating, but Andrew just kept his hand there, in front of Neil’s nose. Neil sniffed it like he had seen dogs do before, and smelled meaty traces of the dog treats, the familiar tang of cigarette smoke, and human sweat.

Time ticked away. 

When Neil didn’t do anything further, Andrew began moving again, telegraphing his motions slowly. Neil still startled as his hand went up through the fur on Neil’s forehead and around one ear.

The firm fingers scratching behind his ear felt nice—very nice—and Neil found himself leaning into the hand. 

A shiver rippled through his fur. 

“Good fox,” Andrew praised, as he continued to pet Neil.

Neil had never been petted before. His mother was the only other human he had been in proximity to in this form prior to now, and she could by no means be called affectionate. 

Now, Neil found himself trilling in a way similar to how cats purred, as Andrew’s hand traveled down scratch under his chin.

It was relaxing and Neil felt tension bleed out of him. He hadn’t thought that the stoic goalie of the PSU Foxes would have such a gentle hand.

He would have let Andrew continue to pet him for as long as he wanted but then a loud noise disturbed their peace and Neil skittered away from the source.

Kevin announced his presence with the loud clatter of the locker room doors reopening and the squeak of his sneakers on the polished wood flooring. “What’s taking you so long?” 

Then he saw where Andrew was crouched next to Neil. “Oh, not again. What are you, Cinderella?”

“What would that make you? Prince Charming?” Andrew sneered.

Neil backed up a few more steps, unsure of what Kevin would do, and barked at both of them.

“You didn’t even clean up.” Kevin accused with exasperation, looking at the court where scattered balls and cones still stood. “Just get it out of here. I’ll put the stuff away.”

“You’re just jealous that animals like me.”

Kevin huffed but didn’t deign to give a response, instead turning around and striding towards where the exy equipment lay.

“Well, you heard him, time to leave.” Andrew again spoke to Neil as if he expected Neil to understand him.

Neil blinked, certain only in that he shouldn’t display a preternatural understanding of human language.

Andrew sighed and pulled out a fourth treat, waving it slowly in front of Neil. As Neil reached out for it, he drew back. Neil understood his intent and played along. They continued in almost a dance-like fashion, with Andrew occasionally letting him have a treat until Andrew had successfully lured him out of the building and security gates out back.

“You’re lucky I just restocked,” Andrew said, as he tucked away the now half-empty mint container.

Neil yipped and jumped about, pretending to not understand and begging for more treats. They were good and Neil was remembering that he hadn’t actually eaten much recently, having spent most of his time in his fox form. 

“There’s no more for you, bratty little fox. Shoo.” Andrew made a dashing motion with his hands, drawing Neil’s notice to the black armbands he wore—the armbands that contained at least one knife.

Neil decided not to push his luck and whined before dashing into the forest surrounding the stadium.

The excitement of the day pushed Neil onwards as he scampered through the underbrush—watching the Foxes game, sneaking into the Foxhole Court, the unexpected tension that existed between Kevin Day and Riko Moriyama, and Andrew Minyard’s odd behavior.

There were so many mysteries tangled up in one another. The childhood incident at Evermore that haunted Neil for so long—maybe Kevin wasn’t as unaffected by it as Neil had thought.

_You don’t know what the Moriyamas are capable of_. 

Neil’s own father had cut a man to pieces in the depths of that dark stadium. Had he been invited in by Tetsuji Moriyama? Had it intended to be an initiation ritual into the life of organized crime?

His mother had always refused to answer any of Neil’s questions about that night, no matter how he asked and no matter how good he behaved. She had insisted he didn’t need to know.

And Kevin’s hand. All the news coverage made it sound like a tragic accident, but with Kevin talking about Riko and Andrew waggling his own left hand in a taunting manner, there seemed to be much more to the story. Less of a tragic accident and a more sinister plot.

Then, there was Andrew’s strange response to finding Neil. How had he known someone else was there? Why did he expect Neil to behave like a domestic pet? Kevin had implied finding wild animals with him was a common occurrence.

Neil ran aimlessly about in the wilderness, trying to outrun his thoughts, but to no avail. 

He burned with the need to know as he darted past trees and hopped over a river. Leaves clung to his fur as he went in circles, finding peaceful patches of grass to paw at and pace about in but no peace of mind. His desire for answers blazed stronger with every step he took. 

It was time for him to leave exy and America and hopefully danger behind, but how could he, with such puzzles dangled before him?

The moon rose higher and higher, then started to set, and Neil still battled the internal conflict within. 

Leave or stay.

Leave and be safe. Follow the plan. Head south, away from Nathan’s influence.

Stay. Follow Kevin Day. Uncover the mysteries that had plagued his dreams for years.

He could almost hear his mother’s voice whispering in the wind, ordering him to remember his promises even as she lay dying on the beach. She would drag him away tied up if she could. But she was dead, and Neil was here. Only he could make the choice.

By the time the sun started to rise, Neil was no closer to a resolution, but he was tired for once.

He found a soft patch of dirt under a bush that worked as an adequate resting spot bed and closed his eyes, still in fox form. Sleep came quickly this time, ushering in dreams of exy balls bouncing on their own.

* * *

Andrew dropped Kevin off at Abby’s and drove back to Foxhole Tower. He entered his dorm and made to sit on one of the bean bag chairs in the main area. Before he could, Aaron interrupted him.

“Hold up. You’re not sitting on the bag covered in dog hair.”

“Luck for you, this isn’t dog hair.” Andrew continued toward the chair.

“What is it, coyote? Wolf?”

“Fox.” Andrew sat down.

Aaron groaned. “Fox hair on the beanbag. What is wrong with you?”

There were plenty of things wrong with Andrew, and his fox hair covered clothing was the least of his problems.

Nicky, ever the mediator, tried changing the subject. “How was practice with Kevin?”

“We should replace Kevin with the fox. It’s more well-mannered and easier to train than him.”

“Where do these animals come from?” Nicky deftly ignored the suggestion to have an animal teammate. “Are you sure you don’t add dognip to your laundry detergent?”

Aaron scowled at Nicky. “There’s no such thing as dognip. Andrew’s just a freak.”

“Maybe I’m just trying to make up for my unfulfilled childhood dream of owning a puppy.” Andrew shut down the conversation with the mention of his childhood. “I’m going out for a smoke.”

As he reached for the door, Aaron called out, “That’s going to be the death of you!”

“If you aren’t first,” Andrew muttered, more to himself than to his brother.

Out on the rooftop, Andrew took a drag of his cigarette and blew upwards, obscuring his view of the nearly full moon. Waning gibbous. It was probably the reason he had some much energy left tonight, and why he was, as Nicky put it, dognip.

_Andrew’s just a freak_. If only Aaron knew just how much of a freak Andrew was. 

Andrew fiddled with the bracelet he wore under his armbands, careful not unclasp it. It was the only thing keeping him from transforming into a monstrous wolf. There was no way accidentally removing it would go down well.

Some days, he wondered if he could just go out into the mountains, take the bracelet off, and lose himself. But his deals kept him tethered to his brother and humanity, to Palmetto and exy. Not to mention, the woman who gave him the bracelet would probably be annoyed enough to track him down.

The friendly fox was an interesting addition to the monotonous routine. It must have sensed Andrew as kin. Ordinary werewolves elicited one of two responses from canine animals: aggression or submission. 

Andrew, who wore an experimental magical artifact that suppressed his transformation and dulled his supernatural abilities, seemed to instead be considered as pack by all the canines he met since his lycanthropy activated. Dogs would disobey their owners to seek him out, and wild wolves, coyotes, and foxes approached him when they would otherwise hide from humans.

The moon, even full, had a muted effect on Andrew, but maybe there was some imperceptible change to make the fox more friendly towards him. Wild animals normally lost interest in him after a couple of minutes.

His phone buzzed. _Full moon in 3 days, be careful._

Think of the devil and she’ll think of you too. Hope Michelson needed to stop treating Andrew like he was one of her students. At least she had stopped trying to convince him to be locked up in her school’s dungeon for a month or however long it took Andrew to control his werewolf shifting.

She had tried several persuasion tactics when they met, just after Andrew killed Tilda and unknowingly activated his werewolf gene. _It would be safer, for you and your brother, if you left_.

Aaron carried the werewolf gene too—they were identical twins—but would remain human as long as he wasn’t directly responsible for the death of another. Even if he was told about werewolves and witches and vampires, Aaron wouldn’t be safe as a fragile human and couldn’t have a place at the school.

Andrew hadn’t risked death killing his poor excuse of a mother and lived just to abandon his brother and let strangers at some school for the supernatural chain him down once a month.

After Andrew stubbornly refused to attend the Salvatore School for several days, Hope had given in just as the full moon was set to rise the next night. She produced a bracelet from her bag of magic objects and charmed it to suppress his lycanthropy, with the accompanying warning that whenever he did remove it, he would need to be in a contained environment. It would release a backlash of lunar energy that would render him in wolf form until he could regain his humanity—if he could at all.

For months afterward, she texted before each full moon, trying to convince him to leave his family and join the school. Eventually, she must have realized it would never work, and simply texted him reminders about the moon.

Maybe the moon was making him maudlin, contemplating things he couldn’t change. Sometimes, he thought he could feel its rays, a warmth not unlike sunlight. Andrew breathed in the last dregs of his cigarette and crushed the filter against the cement.

He needed to sleep—the post-game team meeting tomorrow was going to take up all his energy.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The more Neil uncovers, the more he wants to stay.
> 
> Andrew tries and fails not to get attached to a stray fox.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for your patience! I'm currently restructuring the final chapters so they will be a little late and I'm not sure when they will be posted. I'm hoping to finish posting by the end of October. Now please enjoy so cute fox shenanigans.

Neil woke up disoriented, struggling to regain his bearings. He crawled out of the bush and shook off the bramble that got caught in his fur.

The sun was low in the sky and sinking downwards, casting the forest in golden light. The entire day had passed without his notice. 

According to his self-imposed timeline, it was time to head south towards Mexico. He told himself it was what he needed to do, but couldn’t find the motivation to move.

His father’s men were out there, even if Nathan Wesninski himself was locked up in prison on charges that only scratched the surface of his criminal history.

Still, Neil found himself staying right where he was, unwilling to leave Palmetto, unwilling to leave exy. 

Mexico had exy too. It wasn’t as popular there, but their national team did okay in world championships. Neil could watch games in sports bars. It would be enough. It had to be enough.

Neil forced his limbs to move as he traced out his plan. He would travel as a fox again, to Columbia instead of Charlotte and then fly out to California to get a more suitable fake identification for living south of the border. From there, he could bus and train down to San Diego, travel as a fox to Tijuana, and then disappear for good.

First, Neil needed to reorient himself to where he was now.

He followed the trail in the direction Palmetto should be until he heard the faint sounds of civilization. Then, he crept in the areas off-path to not be caught by humans. 

It didn’t occur to him to switch back to human form. 

Neil was near a dorm of some sort, by a student parking lot. He was about to circle the campus boundaries for a more familiar reference point when a blonde figure in all-black caught his attention. 

Hel barked at Andrew Minyard before he could think better of the idea.

Andrew turned course from heading towards his car and looked over. “Oh? Hello, little fox. You’re the same one from last night.”

He approached Neil, who decided getting Andrew’s attention had been much too hasty an impulse and retreated into the hedges he had poked his head through.

Andrew stopped and waited to see what Neil would do. When Neil barked again but didn’t run off, Andrew left the parking lot in favor of following Neil into the brush. He crouched down, extending a hand, and made a clicking sound, but otherwise did nothing.

Neil understood why Andrew needed to get him to cooperate last night when he was an intruder in the middle of a sports stadium, but not why Andrew wasn’t shooing him back into the woods now. 

He stared at him, unsure of what to do. Andrew didn’t move, and neither did Neil, the two of them locked in a standoff that Neil had inexplicably invited him into. 

Last night, Andrew had plied Neil with the unexpectedly good dog treats, gently coaxing him out of the Foxhole Court. Surely his intentions now couldn’t be nefarious?

Neil took a few steps forward and emitted a hopefully curious sounding chirp. 

He wasn’t particularly practiced in the different sounds he could make as a fox—most of his recent time spent in his fox form had been for traveling silently. When he had transformed under his mother’s command when he had been injured, she had made sure he was quiet and obedient. 

He didn’t think the noise would be sensible to a real fox, but it should be friendly-sounding to human ears.

Andrew clicked at him more, remaining crouched where he was, and Neil closed the distance between them. He sniffed at Andrew’s hand again and smelled the faint scent of cigarettes. 

When Neil didn’t back away, Andrew slowly extended his hand into Neil’s fur as he had last night.

Neil relaxed under the touch.

Maybe Andrew Minyard just really liked animals, if he was spending time trying to befriend woodland creatures instead of driving off to wherever he intended to go. 

Neil wasn’t going to complain—it was a fine excuse to delay leaving, and the petting really did feel nice. It wasn’t the sharp blade of his father’s knife or the clenched grip of his mother’s fist or even the strange grabbiness of the girls who had tried approaching him.

Andrew was careful in his movements, letting Neil come to him rather than chase. His hand was gentle, with agile fingers seeking out Neil’s chin. Neil found himself closing his eyes and trilling as he leaned into the hand.

For those few moments, they were alone in a bubble of peace that Neil wished could last. 

Neil let his eyes stay closed as he took it in—delicate fingers brushing through his fur, the faint smell of asphalt from the nearby parking lot, the rustling of leaves in the wind and faint murmuring of students entering and exiting nearby dorms.

But in the back of his mind, Neil could hear his mother hissing about distractions and rules, how Neil was going to get himself caught and killed.

Unwillingly, Neil opened his eyes and shook away Andrew’s hand. He barked as Andrew stood, not quite wanting to be the first to leave.

Andrew shot him an unimpressed look. “I suppose you want to spoil your appetite with more treats.” But his words didn’t match action, as Andrew brought out the mint container filled with treats.

It wasn’t what Neil had intended, but he wasn’t going to complain. The weight of his mother’s concerns faded a little. Neil barked again, this time in agreement.

“You’re lucky I remembered to restock after your little stunt last night. I’ll have to buy more today though,” Andrew said as he tossed a treat out.

Neil snapped it up with unerring precision and let himself taste it briefly before swallowing.

When Andrew didn’t make any further motions, Neil sat down and panted as a dog would.

Andrew sighed and tossed another one at Neil, far out enough that Neil had to stand up and leap for it.

“Hmmm, little fox can catch, huh?”

They played for a little bit, Andrew throwing out the little dog treats and Neil catching each one in his mouth. After maybe a dozen treats, Andrew snapped the mint container closed.

Neil stepped closer and made what he thought sounded like a baleful half howl but Andrew simply tucked the container back into his pocket.

“No, fox, you’ve had enough for today. And I have things to do.” Andrew reached out his hand again, and when Neil didn’t shy away, he ruffled the fur on Neil’s head before turning away and heading for his car.

Neil huffed but turned away and darted back to the seclusion of the woods.

It really was time to go, now that Neil knew exactly where he was. He needed to cut south through forested land until he hit I-85, follow it northeast to where it met I-385, then follow that southeast to Columbia.

But—

Was he really in danger here?

Sure, the proximity to Kevin Day wasn’t ideal, given their brief history, but Neil could easily pass as a college student amongst the thousands that attended PSU. College students weren’t expected to be in class all day, they had irregular schedules and free time, so nobody would question what Neil was doing if he just wandered about. 

College students had busy part time schedules and nobody would wonder why Neil needed money—tuition, room, and board were all expensive. There was probably some sort of general student gym he could shower in.

And the library. It would be much better to learn Spanish before going to Mexico than after, and really, given Neil’s aptitude for languages, it shouldn’t take too long. He could play language CDs in the library computers to get a feel for accents.

_Idiot_ _boy_, rang through his head.

It was a stupid plan, a foolish plan. He would be breaking all his promises. But now that the idea has taken root, it flourished in his mind. 

Neil pawed at the dirt out of frustration. His magic bubbled inside him, close to the surface like water just about to boil, but trapped under his skin even now. The power, just out of reach, flexed against the bindings Mary put on him, the other thing that transferred between forms.

He could still remember those final moments on the beach with startling clarity. Mary had cut open his forearm, too far gone to have time to draw blood from his arm with a syringe the way she usually did. Her shaking hands had traced the blood runes onto his chest even as it mixed the blood from her own fatal injuries. She had forced him to chant the spell that wrapped up with magic tight with thorns. He had felt his magic strain against the bindings, just as it did now, but he had been unable to deny her anything in those final moments.

She was trying one last time to keep him safe from those who hunted the magical. There were certain ways to test for different kinds of supernatural abilities, but Neil was unfamiliar with them. He didn’t even know much about witches, let alone other beings. Mary had told him to listen to her and not worry about it.

She had said that about a lot of things, and now Neil was woefully ignorant about the world. 

He should leave, but he was tired of running away, and tired of having no answers.

In the time it took Neil to decide, the sun had set and the moon had risen again.

How odd. He had never spent so long in his fox form, never needed to. It wasn’t bad though. 

Sounds and smells and colors were all clearer, and nobody paid him any notice. He didn’t have to worry about remembering which cover story and fake name to use, didn’t have to worry about his scars being revealed, didn’t have to worry about human necessities.

As he contemplated the benefits of staying a fox, Neil realized he had wandered back to the exy stadium and that he wasn’t alone. Andrew and Kevin were getting out of a large, sleek-looking car that presumably belonged to Andrew, who exited from the driver side.

They were there to practice again. 

Maybe Kevin would reveal more clues about the mystery surrounding Evermore and the Moriyamas.

Neil rustled in the bushes to deliberately attract attention and then poked his head out of a bush that was illuminated by the lights in the parking lot.

Kevin hissed at him and made motions with his arm. “Shoo! Go away,” he demanded.

Andrew stuck his arm out, blocking Kevin. “Hello, stalker fox. Did you miss my company already? Or maybe you just want more treats.”

“This is what you get for feeding stray animals. It’s following you!”

“Don’t be stupid, foxes aren’t fast or smart enough to follow cars. This is probably part of its territory.”

Andrew took a few steps forward and clicked at Neil.

Kevin took offense to this. “Don’t encourage it to come over here.”

“Who else is going to keep me entertained as you swing at exy balls?”

“Keep you—ridiculous. Play Princess and the Fox if you want, I’m going to practice.”

As Kevin started walking away, Andrew called after him. “Are you telling me to kiss a fox? That’s kinky shit, even for you, Kevin.”

All Kevin responded with was a one-finger salute to Andrew.

Neil made what he thought was an inquisitive noise before crossing the distance to Andrew. It would be best if they followed Kevin into the court, but how would he convey that to the other boy?

Andrew crouched down and reached out a hand, seeming to wait for permission that Neil gave before petting him. This time, Andrew stroked along his head and along Neil’s back. Neil shivered and ruffled out his fur with a small shake. The sensation was once again foreign but pleasant.

Andrew’s hand had paused when Neil moved, so he turned a bit to nose under Andrew’s palm and make the petting continued. It should have been weird, letting a stranger run his fingers through Neil’s fur, but Neil was too distracted by how nice it felt.

He spent a lot of time avoiding people, emotionally and physically. Emotionally, because it wouldn’t do to get attached to other students when he would inevitably move whenever his mother thought it was time. Physically, because he had to avoid anyone noticing his scars and asking questions. Not to mention, he never understood the allure of girls, no matter how strong of a distraction his mother had thought they would present for him.

Since he was a fox, Andrew wouldn’t ask him to hang out after class, or what he thought of the newest movie he hasn’t seen, or make him work hard to remember the current cover story when asked questions about where he lived before this. 

Neil wouldn’t be lured to the back of the bleachers for awkward kissing that his mother would punish him for later. There were no scars that could be felt through clothing, or fur, rather, in this form and thus no awkward explanations needed.

His fur must have been soft, or maybe an interesting texture, from the way Andrew seemed to trail his hand back and forth through it, as if savoring the feel. But by now, Kevin was probably getting changed and going to practice. Andrew was hardly going to chat about the mysteries Neil wanted to solve to a woodland animal.

Neil pranced away from Andrew and barked towards the security gate that guarded the player and staff entrance.

“Oh? Is that how you got in yesterday?” Andrew drawled his words as he approached Neil and pat him on the head. “Hey, do you want to annoy Kevin? This will piss him off for sure.”

Andrew clicked his tongue and headed towards the building, expecting Neil to follow.

As Neil trailed behind, he wondered what the relationship between Kevin and Andrew was. They had to be close, for them to go practice together on their own, even if Andrew didn’t seem to actually do anything exy related at them.

Andrew played the role of chauffeur for Kevin, who wasn’t a student and might not live within walking distance. That meant Andrew needed to go out of his way to pick Kevin up from wherever he lived. It was possible that the other teammates also took Kevin to nighttime practice on rotation, but Neil suspected that wasn’t the case.

Their banter didn’t seem particularly friendly, but it also lacked genuine animosity. Kevin was exasperated by Andrew’s seeming lack of interest in exy and his apparently frequent solicitation with wild animals, but their exchanges implied a certain closeness. Neil didn’t think an assistant coach and a team member would have the kind of bond he had observed thus far. 

Maybe this was what friendship was—it wasn’t like Neil would know.

Andrew ushered Neil into the stadium, through the locker rooms, and onto the court. Kevin was already doing warm-ups along the outside of the glass walls. He looked over and frowned. “You brought it in here?” Kevin sounded scandalized. 

“It seems to like exy. Maybe you can practice with it instead.” With a smirk, Andrew grabbed an exy ball from the rolling bin that Kevin had pulled out. He waved it back and forth in front of Neil.

Neil tracked it, head moving left and right, not sure what Andrew was up to. Andrew then crouched down and rolled the ball towards Neil.

Was this a modified game of catch? Neil snatched up the ball in his jaw but stayed where he was. Wild foxes didn’t play catch. He should pretend to not know what was happening.

“You better not put that ball back in here once you’re done,” Kevin called out from where he had resumed stretching. “It’s contaminated with animal germs.”

“Humans are animals too,” Andrew rebutted.

“Well, we don’t go around licking balls.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Kevin didn’t deign responded and walked into the court walls to start practice. 

Andrew snapped his fingers at Neil, who feigned startlement. He sighed and approached Neil, then tapped on a part of the ball that wasn’t enclosed him Neil’s mouth. Neil spat out the ball, now covered in his saliva.

“You better not have rabies,” Andrew said as he picked it up. He took a few steps backward, and rolled the ball towards Neil again.

Neil made him go through this process a few times before pretending to understand what Andrew wanted and start bringing him the ball.

Then, things got interesting as Andrew started to throw the ball. Neil didn’t have any experience catching flying objects in his mouth except for the treats from earlier that day, but he didn’t rise to starting striker on a team while pretending to not know the game for no reason.

He quickly got the hang of it and Andrew began to do more complicated throws, farther and higher, as if testing Neil’s athletic abilities.

By the time Kevin needed to break for water, Neil has running parallel halfway down the court to catch the ball and bring it back.

“You taught it to play catch?” 

Neil had been wondering if Andrew did this regularly. Kevin’s incredulous tone implied he didn’t often try to domesticate foxes through games, so why was he playing catch with Neil?

“It could be the Air Bud of exy. Buddy was a real dog, you know.”

“That dog was a professional actor! You can’t just teach a wild animal exy.”

“Aww, you’re just afraid Fox will be better than you. How the mighty do fall.”

“That’s absurd—it’s a fox. What position would it even play?” Kevin shook his head as if in disbelief he was even contemplating the idea of an exy-playing fox. “Hold on. Did you name it Fox?”

“As you keep saying, it’s a wild animal. It’s not mine to name. So, Fox.”

Neil wasn’t sure about that logic. Wasn’t calling Neil by Fox still naming him? From the skeptical look Kevin was shooting Andrew, it seemed that they both suspected Andrew was simply uncreative about naming.

Instead of bringing the ball to Andrew, Neil decided to see what Kevin would do. He dropped the ball by Kevin’s feet and watched it roll towards him.

“Andrew!” Kevin sounded overly panicked about being brought a ball.

“Relax, Fox is harmless.” Andrew came over and ruffled the fur on Neil’s head. “A good little fox, bothering Kevin for me. That deserves a treat.”

He took out the metal tin with the dog treats and tossed one towards Neil, who snapped it up in an instant.

Then, Andrew sat on the bench next to where Kevin’s stuff was and beckoned Neil over. “Let’s watch the great Kevin Day so you’ll know what you need to do to surpass him.”

If only Neil could do such a thing, if only he could even reach towards any bit of the potential he knew he had. He would settle for being half as good as Kevin was currently, if it meant he could play more exy. 

Neil chased away the sudden stab of melancholy that dug into him from being so close and yet impossibly far from where he wanted to be. He circled around himself and pretended to sniff about Kevin’s things—which smelled like every locker room Neil’s ever been in—before sitting on the floor next to Andrew. 

Kevin glared at them both but said nothing, choosing to return to the court to continue practicing.

Andrew’s hand found it’s way back to Neil’s head as he kept a streaming narrative. “You’re a strange little thing, aren’t you? I wonder where you came from. You’re small—are you here to establish a new territory? That’s what Kevin is doing. He left his creepy cult to join our foxhole. I haven’t decided it he’s really a predator or just prey playing pretend.”

_Creepy cult?_ The Edgar Allen Ravens were the undisputed top team in collegiate exy. Their somber overuse of black clothing hardly qualified them to be a cult. Cults were…fake witches and overzealous religious men, blood sacrifices under the moonlight. Except—

Nathan had taken apart a man in Evermore, right in front of three children. Had that been some kind of cult indoctrination? Did the Ravens have ties to magic? Did they conduct enhancement rituals to improve their players? Had it been a full moon that night?

Surely not. 

Mary had always insisted that the Wesninskis didn’t know magic was real. Neil’s powers were bound every year so he couldn’t accidentally reveal its existence to anyone who could be spying. His mother feared what Nathan might accomplish if he added magic to his list of resources.

Witches like Neil could be exploited for their powers if people outside the supernatural community found out about him. It was why Mary would punish him severely for shifting to his fox form outside her explicit permission.

There were a lot of things she kept secret from him, but Neil didn’t believe she would out-right lie about his father knowing that magic existed

“It’s too bad you have to watch Kevin struggle like this. Well, you probably wouldn’t be able to appreciate it either way.” Andrew scratched along the back of Neil’s ear and he gave an involuntary trill of pleasure.

Neil and Andrew watched as Kevin did the same drill from yesterday with the cones. His success rate was similar to yesterday’s.

“Kevin Day really was the best. Good thing you can’t tell him I said so, or he’d accuse me of caring about exy. But look at that. Three months of practice and he’s already better than most college level strikers. Not even Riko breaking his hand can stop him.”

Neil’s mind screeched like a shrill car braking too hard as his thoughts collided. It took all of his control not to startle at the last sentence. 

_Riko breaking his hand._ Kevin’s injury was supposed to be from a skiing accident, an unfortunate tragedy but still an accident. But the way Andrew spoke, the injury was caused deliberately by Kevin’s own adopted brother.

Neil tried to think up a scenario where Riko could have caused the injury by accident—goading Kevin into skiing or challenging him to a dangerous slope outside his abilities—but _breaking his hand_ didn’t leave room for interpretation. That was an unambiguous statement. 

Had skiing been involved at all? Was it all some kind of media coverup?

This was certainly the damage caused by Riko that they were talking about yesterday. But why go along with the coverup, if Kevin hadn’t been injured skiing? Kevin had implied Riko, or the Moriyamas, would go to even more drastic lengths than crippling a star player who was basically part of the family. 

Just what other secrets were waiting to be uncovered?

Neil could once again hear his mother’s warnings. He shouldn’t poke his nose into this. But he chose to ignore her voice. 

Andrew didn’t notice Neil’s distraction. “I made a deal to protect him, but he’s his own greatest weakness. Any moment now, he’s going to go crawling back to Evermore. I don’t think I’m enough to keep him here.” 

So that’s what their deal was. One question was answered but several more took its place. How did Andrew intend to protect Kevin? What further danger did Riko pose? How deeply was Evermore involved with the Butcher? What other awful things were the Moriyama covering up with their fortune?

Andrew drifted into silence, but his hand didn’t stop. He alternated between spreading his fingers through Neil’s fur and giving him nice scratches in different spots.

They both watched Kevin try again and again and again. 

Neil wondered why Andrew didn’t practice with Kevin if he was so concerned about the other man leaving. Wouldn’t Kevin prefer practicing against a person, especially one of the top goalies in the division?

Andrew seemed to read his mind. “It’s too bad nobody else will go with him to these. He gets too fixated on his perceived lack of progress. If there was someone else he could split his attention on, he would think more about exy than the Moriyamas. Ugh, I can’t believe I want him to think more about exy.” 

Neil turned to look at Andrew and caught a flash of a grimace before Andrew’s face smoothed out into a blank stare.

It wasn’t an expression of true apathy though. Andrew’s words revealed a depth Neil wouldn’t have anticipated, feelings that Neil could see behind his mask of indifference. 

For the first time in years, Neil found himself caring about more than just safety from his father and exy. He wanted to know more about Andrew too, who treated animals with kindness but people with barbed sarcasm. 

In that moment, Neil decided to stay, if only for a little longer. 

He would find out more about Kevin and the Moriyamas and Andrew. 

Then he would leave. 

* * *

The bracelet under his armband burned as Andrew tapped his fingers on his desk, tuning out the lecture in favor of scribbling doodles in his notebook and trying to distract himself from the familiar sensation.

He didn’t know quite how the thing worked, only that it kept him from feeling the effect of the moon and put a wall in place around his natural aggression. The more actively the magic was keeping his power contained, the stronger the bracelet burned.

Andrew drew out the bracelet’s symbols into the margins of his paper. After years of looking at it and running his fingers over the etched markings, he could draw them with his eyes closed. 

_I can’t guarantee it’s fool-proof_, Hope had said. 

Hope was a curious woman. Despite all her threats, she had let Andrew be, almost entirely on his terms. Yet he didn’t doubt that she would put him down like a rabid dog if he ever caused werewolf related trouble or otherwise that drew unwanted attention to the supernatural community.

When her initial attempts at persuasion had failed to convince him to leave his family and join her school, she had threatened to kidnap him.

He responded that he had killed his own birth mother, did she really think forcibly taking him would result in anything less than violence? The shaking fury and indignation that she might try to separate him from Aaron had almost driven him into a premature transformation. It did lead to a set of permanent crescent marks from his nails into the bottom side of a table in the restaurant they had spoken in. 

Her boyfriend, who appeared to be there for moral support rather than any useful purpose, had pulled her aside and mentioned something about the lengths he had gone through to stay with his own werewolf foster brother.

Maybe it was understanding, maybe it was pity. Whatever it was, she had spent the rest of the afternoon developing and performing a ritual on a silver bracelet that could control his werewolf responses.

It burned today, constant, the way it always did on the day and night of a full moon, filtering out the lunar energies from his system. Today, it felt like he was pressing his skin on a mug of hot chocolate on the edge of too hot to drink. It would feel stronger and burn worse next month.

At first, the burning during a full moon felt akin to a weak strength pain cream, there but easy to ignore. It still got that way sometimes when exy matches managed to actually bring up his adrenaline. 

Then the incident at Eden’s Twilight happened. A literal red haze had clouded his vision when he launched himself at the four men forcing themselves on Nick. Even as he planned to punch their eyes out and carve their dicks to pieces with his switchblade, the bracelet had burned so badly that the pain had momentarily crippled him. 

The intensity distracted him even as he had twisted with rage, trying to serve out violent justice, and the bastards managed to get more hits on him than he on them before security arrived. 

Without the bracelet, Andrew liked to think he would have been the only one left standing—or even alive—but considering the damage he could have accomplished with access to werewolf speed and strength, Hope wouldn’t have left him standing either.

The next full moon, Andrew had felt a noticeable difference in strength from the bracelet.

The connection wasn’t hard to make: the more the bracelet’s magic was used, the worse it would get. Being upset, being excited, being aroused—all of these triggered the bracelet and shortened its lifespan. 

Andrew thought there might be a few years left before the intensity of the bracelet on a full moon would reach an extreme level of pain. Hopefully, that would be enough time to graduate and see the rest of his family settled, so he could safely disappear for however long it would take him to control his shift. 

That was, if the international yakuza didn’t take him out, what with Kevin bringing their ire with him to the team.

He needed a smoke. The nicotine helped soothe his nerves and kept him calm. Low amounts of alcohol did the same trick. Andrew suspected weed would too, but the smell of joints was repugnant, even without enhanced senses. Maybe he’d make special brownies sometime. 

With twenty minutes left of class, Andrew chose to sketch out Fox, tracing out the curve of its spine, fluffing out its tail with short strokes, gently shading in the top half.

Canines liked Andrew and Andrew liked them back. They lived such uncomplicated lives—play, hunt, eat, sleep, fight, fuck. Furry little friends that didn’t care about the trappings of society Andrew was forced to interact with but refused to conform to. 

Fox had been showing up for a week now, mostly around the exy stadium, but Andrew had found it once more near the dorm. Its territory was probably the part of the experimental forest that ran between the two areas. It had quickly gotten used to Andrew and would now approach him without hesitation.

Andrew was a friend to other animals, but those were all domesticated dogs and belonged to other people. The standard poodle an elderly couple liked to walk around the duck pond on campus, a chihuahua terrier an adjutant professor sometimes brought to her classes, the pit mix that raced alongside its owner who jogged around the perimeter of campus every evening.

Fox wasn’t his and never would be. It was a creature of nature who belonged to the wilderness it lived in but—

—it was nice to pretend, just for a little while. 

Andrew made sure not to feed it too many treats and certainly didn’t try to make an irascible Kevin more friendly to it, lest it try to approach other humans and get rounded up by animal control or become a plaything of assholes that would shoot BB pellets at it. 

He drew another doodle of Fox, this time with sleek lines as it twisted up to catch an exy ball in its mouth. 

As Andrew tried to decide on a third doodle, shuffling from other students drew his attention back to reality. 

Finally, the class had let out. 

There were a few hours before dinner and then more nighttime practice with Kevin—perfect for a smoke or two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what your favorite part was in the comments! <3 Also, check the previous chapters for embedded art I've just added to chapters 1 and 2, if you haven't seen it yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments and kudos are both much appreciated. Updates will be weekly on Mondays. Come say hi on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/FaiaSakura) or [Tumblr](http://faiasakura.tumblr.com) ❤


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